If your carbon brake surface is worn down, it's best to purchase a new wheel than to try resurfacing it. Photo: Caley Fretz | VeloNews.comRe-surfacing brake tracks
Dear Lennard,
I have a set of Easton EC 90 carbon tubular rims that I use...
If your carbon brake surface is worn down, it's best to purchase a new wheel than to try resurfacing it. Photo: Caley Fretz | VeloNews.comRe-surfacing brake tracks
Dear Lennard,
I have a set of Easton EC 90 carbon tubular rims that I use for ’cross. They are awesome despite being a little more than four years old and showing wear on the braking surface (they are not disc brakes). Can the braking surface be resurfaced? If so, how? Do you have any experience with this?
They’re great wheels that I am not able to replace at the moment and upgrading to discs is totally out of the question right now. It seems like ’cross can wear the surface down more than road use, so I would like to think there is a solution out there besides buying new wheels. But I am not aware of how it is all done. I would love any advice you could give!
— Dan
Dear Dan,
It had never occurred to me before to even think of doing such a thing. I am very interested to know as well and did some research on it. Unfortunately, the brake track cannot be resurfaced, if you mean by adding material, by any of the manufacturers I’ve contacted. Their responses are below. I also asked carbon-fiber repair firms, and only one of them would do it, and the others offered reasons for not doing so. See those responses below as well. If you were to somehow resurface it, I’m certain that it would void any manufacturer warranty you might have on the wheel.
? Lennard
From Reynolds:
Inherent in high-performance rims is the design concept for minimum wall thickness that will provide a “reasonable” life span. Unfortunately, this means that there is no additional sacrificial material that could be machined off in a resurfacing operation. In theory, ceramic could be deposited on the worn surface, and then ground smooth. As you may recall, I laminated a ceramic layer onto the surface of the carbon during the molding process (it was a production product for Lew rims), and also experimented with ceramic that was deposited after molding, and then ground smooth (never a Lew production process). For reasons not pertinent to this topic, neither is ideal as a current state-of-the-art solution for a new/production rim, however with significant resources (more cost than the cost of a new rim), a ceramic compound could be deposited to the braking surface of a worn rim and then ground smooth. This would be a solution/process for resurfacing a worn braking surface on a carbon rim.
Reynolds manufactures a ceramic brake track rim that is sold under the brand Pacific Rims, and it is sold as an OEM product to certain customers who request this brake track. The reason we do this is to avoid the hassle of needing to use a special brake pad. The ceramic makes the braking surface super durable and although it’s not marketed as a CX product, it would work well for that application. The down side of this rim is that the braking is not optimized for stopping power or heat-resistance, and it does not perform as well as our CTg laminate with the Cryo-Blue pad. It would, however, solve the problem Dan has experienced associated with CX use.
— Paul Lew
Director of Technology and Innovation Reynolds Cycling, LLC
From Zipp:
I can only speak for ours, officially. But they cannot. Most brake track surfaces, ours included, are integrally constructed and are not capable of being deconstructed to resurface them.
— David Ripley
Technical PR Manager
Zipp Speed Weaponry
From DT Swiss:
On the record, we do not recommend “resurfacing” of our carbon braking surfaces due to all of the variables involved. Especially given the brake track is both a structural and functional part of the rim. This is because we simply cannot vouch for the quality, materials used or the experience possessed by the facility or technician on a repair in the field.
— Matthew McClendon
Marketing/Account Executive
DT Swiss, Inc.
From ENVE:
No, there is not a process that can add material to a brake track after it has worn away. I m